Final Animation

Final animation in sight

Still got some work to do to get it perfectly synced with the audio (!), want to add in some hand rendered type using text from the short piece i have written about the hybrid and more stuff to add in generally. Other than that am pretty pleased with it so far!

Sketchbook work and ideas for hand rendered type

Narrative

Narrative text to explain my hybrid:

This hybrid of a guitar and earthenware pottery is made up of 2 quite separate objects but is combined through focusing on the use of lines - lines derived from the patterned glaze of the jug and lines from the strings and fretboard of the guitar. These lines are organic and fluid, constantly moving. The objects are sourced from natural materials - clay and wood - and so the hybrid represents this through a muted colour palette of greens, greys and browns and the flowing movement of the contours and marks. The purpose of the objects are drawn upon with reference to the production of sound from the guitar and the soundwaves that the guitar strings emanate. On closer examination the unique hand painted glaze on the jug resembles the shapes of sound oscillations - vibrating, resonating, echoing, reflecting, refraction, reverberation. The fragile quality of the jug is represented through the breaking up of the solid and refined lines into fragmented debris, where the order is broken. This is enhanced through the sound of the guitar affected by feedback and reverb. The reformation of the objects once merged is then terminated through the use of sound.

I like the idea of lines coming off the fretboard of the guitar and creating patterns - will explore this further and try and time it with the music/sounds more.

The sacred lunch break

Seconde Nature / Reactive Identity from Universal Everything on Vimeo.

Just browsing vimeo on my ten minute lunch break at work and came across this beautiful simple animation by Universal Everything. I love the colours and the simple movement transitions.

Lovebytes 2006 / Cinema ident from Universal Everything on Vimeo.

I also love the movements in this animation and i would like to use this as inspiration for our Reform brief. The fluidity of the lines really pulls you into the animation. It reminds me of the artwork for Unknown Pleasures too. It would be nice to take inspiration from this for incorporating the sound wave lines into our work. Again the colours are minimal and i would like to keep the colour pallete in our animation limited.

Collage

I have been playing with some collage work today to try and find an innovative way to present the hybrid of objects. As the objects are very different in scale and shapes I felt that the hybrid shapes which i was developing through collage were looking quite random and i couldn't initially see a way of presenting this in an interesting format in print. I have drawn on Eliasson's work to play with kaleidoscope and spirograph formations so that elements of the hybrid are extracted and presented in a beautiful way. The focus is on the combination of shapes and patterns that i can make which add intrigue to the design because in the process the actual objects become redundant.

Harmonic vibrations

I have been researching sound waves and have found these interesting pictorial representations of sound waves in some old physics text books. I would like to incorporate these into my animation and print work for this brief. Here is some collage work I have been working on:

Sound waves

I've spent today playing about with after effects again and looking at creating a sound wave style movement which i think could provide a nice background for the animation. I feel like i'm starting to master simple animation with scale, opacity and position. Again this is just focusing on one element of one of the objects so next i will look at bringing in other elements to form the hybrid.

Sound wave movement - inspiration

Playing with After Effects

This is my first go at animation in After Effects and i am quite pleased with it. I started by redrawing the pattern on the glaze of the jug in illustrator as i thought this would create a really interesting effect scaling and moving across the page. I have also used collage elements from the photographs of the objects to test simple movement in After Effects. The type within the piece is purely to test how i can use text layers in the animation and i would like eventually to incorporate hand rendered type in the final piece to echo the painted style of the pattern of the jug.

From this initial play we have also seen a link to sound waves, both through the resemblance of the pattern to sound waves drawn on a graph and the result of playing the guitar. I would like us to explore this more and incorporate audio using guitar sounds and possibly the sound of china smashing.

I would also like the feel of the animation to be quite organic, flowing and moving smoothly. I am in interested in forming kaleidoscopic patterns with separate elements of the objects which come together into a hybrid.

Cassandre

I have been looking at the work of French designer Cassandre (real name Adolphe Mouron) this week and his iconic poster designs which use clear, simplified forms and are influenced by cubism and surrealism. His posters for the Dubonnet wine company were the first specifically designed to be placed on fast moving vehicles but still able to be reada and understood by the viewer. He also developed the idea of the serial poster - a group of posters which, when seen in quick succession together, convey a message. The way that Cassandre uses typography in his images is important as he integrated it into the design so that it bacame unified with the imagery. He designed the beautiful Bifur typeface aswell as Acier Noir and Peignot.

“Designing a poster means solving a technical and commercial problem....in a language that can be understood by the common man.”

I thought this poster was particularly useful inspiration for this brief as Cassandre has merged different objects in a coherent composition showing his collage influences. I like how the visual elements are flat and layered over each other in contrast to the photograph of the wheel. There is a lot of movement in the composition as the viewer moves vision across the different objects, which relates to the subject matter of the poster.

Hybrid shapes

This week I began using collage to form interesting shapes for our hybrid and also to pick out interesting facets from both objects as ideas for shapes to build in Cinema 4D.

I thought this idea was interesting - using 2 objects to form a new object rather than making inanimate shapes. A natural object like a tree draws on the origin of the 2 original objects and the natural materials they are composed of, wood and clay.

These collage shapes create surreal objects, almost like creatures, which i think would lend themselves really well to being animated.

Kaleidoscopes / Eliasson

I went to an Echo and the Bunnymen gig last night and they had a really nice backdrop on the stage with motion graphics/short films playing over their songs. One of these films was an image of a kaleidoscope which made me think about how i could cut up my object into smaller shapes which could then be reflected in a uniform pattern and rotated like a kaleidoscope.

Today I have also been looking at the work of Olafur Eliasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist whose work often looks at themes of geometry and space. Here are some images of his beautiful work in the exhibition 'Take your time' which was shown at MOMA 2007-8.

Eliasson plays with reality, perception and representation and i think that his work allows the viewer to engage with the objects he is portraying on a higher level. His work often takes a sculptural form which presents optical illusions to the viewer. I would like to use Eliasson's work as a reference for my Reform brief and play with the shapes from our hybrid to form geometric patterns and movements.

Object no. 2

The object which I will be merging with mine to form a hybrid will be an electric guitar from my project partner Simon. I think the shapes will work well together with their curves and flowing lines. I like the idea of manipulating the lines of the guitar strings so that they move into the pattern of the glaze on the jug.

   

Reform

The first brief of this year is Reform where i have to draw a random object which will be merged with another in a hybrid and then animated. I chose a vintage German ceramic jug. I liked the idea of choosing a piece of pottery as this object has already been reformed to reach its current state. I love the colour and pattern of the glaze which i hope will offer an interesting element to animate.

Prelude

A short intro to some work I completed for briefs during my first year as a FEED graphics student...

Hybrid & 3 Brief: Looking at the cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Salford we created a hybrid of 3 elements and created a campaign to promote the 3rd birthday of Feed. I took inspiration from the architectural shapes and colours of the 3 cities and took a quote from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino... "the city does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand" as inspiration for how to combine these elements.

A visual essay about Ellen Gallagher's piece Bird in Hand which I saw at Tate Modern last year:

Work on a personal identity for myself which, after a lot of experimentation with different styles and based on my varied interests, I chose the name Ruby Red (from a distinguishing feature - my auburn hair) and created a mark inspired by my interest in dance.

A typography brief based on transport. I created a typeface inspired by the rigging of tall ships which i took photos of on a trip to Oslo earlier this year: